


The Bards Will Sing of this One Day

by The_Peridot_Shade



Series: Many Lives, Many Tales—None of Them Easy [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Aerys acts like he does in canon, Aerys is atypical, Depression, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness≠Violence, Obsession, Rhaegar is depressed, Rhaegar is obsessed, Suicidal Thoughts, but Aerys is not exactly a model citizen, follows canon conventions regarding terminology and stigma, i've tried to be as vague as i can without making the story feel too distant, not explicitly stated mental illnesses, not the norm, or a good person, so there's that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-09-24 14:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9760811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Peridot_Shade/pseuds/The_Peridot_Shade
Summary: Character studies on ASOIAF characters, through the lens of mental illness.1. Aerys knows he's damned, but the frost in his bones won't let him care2. Rhaegar's madness is a quiet thing, until he has to face the consequences of his obsessions.





	1. Aerys, the Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warnings:  
> Domestic Violence  
> Rape/Non-con  
> Torture/Captivity and its Aftermath  
> Incest  
> Pre-empted Suicide Attempt  
> Character Death
> 
> Aerys is essentially canonical in this—this is just an attempt to understand his character. He is neither a good person nor a typical case of mental health problems. My goal here is to humanize, but not excuse, him. As such, he does very disturbing things, canonically, which I've attempted to keep vague where possible. Please don't continue reading if you think it will cause you distress.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aerys knows he's damned, but the frost in his bones won't let him care

He dreams of it, the darkness and cold.The impersonally malicious touch of guards and the laugh of that foul witch follow him into sleep (it had no meaning, none, only the senseless cruelty of a woman's blind ambition and the lust of a man for a woman who knew how to play the game).He wakes, screams, and the Kingsguard rush in, but it's too much, the clank of mail striking sheaths, the scrape of swords against leather as they're drawn, and the scent of oil and leather, are all phantoms that pursued him in his nightmares (rough gauntleted hands, a glimmer of light, he hated and loved and feared and longed for the light—it was pain and terror, but at least it was not darkness and cold).He knows they're there to help, but _what if it isn't real, what if this is the dream and he'll wake once more in the cell in Duskendale_?

He's always cold, as if the dank dungeons crept into his bones and never left (it didn't, it lurks under his skin, in his dreams, in every breath he took/takes/will take).He can't go down to the black cells, not that he'd want to anyway, but the executioner is suddenly far busier with all the criminals he sends to death instead of the cells far too reminiscent of his own captivity (it's a kindness, he thinks, death at least is not cold and dark and lonely— _but what if it is_ —he dares not find out).He orders all the fires lit, all the candles and torches, even as he sleeps.

It doesn't help, the warmth fades away.It makes no sense—he is a dragon, the fire should be in his blood.His very nature is failing him (sometimes he thinks he did die and just lingers in the cold and dark because there's no way out, why haven't they come, where is Tywin, where is Joanna, where is Rhaella, Mother, Father, anyone, are they all dead or just a few).

He searches for ways to prolong the heat, consulting the pyromancers, for surely the manufacturers of wildfire could craft an eternal flame (he knows they can't, fire consumes until there is nothing left, Summerhall burned until there was nothing left of his kin, and then the flames died just like the people did, but he has to try).They fail, and the cold creeps back into his blood, freezing flame itself, so he believes.

Quite by accident, he discovers that the pyres of the dead burn long and hot enough to ease the discomfort (not long, just enough for him to remember what warmth felt like, a scrap of meat thrown to a straving dog).He doesn't quite realize how far he's fallen when he starts to hope for a plague or a famine, certain that the mass pyres would warm him long enough.He doesn't realize until he sentences the next criminal brought for his judgment to the stake instead of the noose (he's warm, warm at last, but it fades as the ashes cool, and the screams were like his in the dark and cold before the guards started to hit him when he wouldn't stop).He weeps bitterly, but cannot really regret the flush of warmth that accompanied the screams of the condemned.It gets worse from there.

He knows it's wrong, what he's doing, he knows he's not well (it's no excuse…he'll be damned for this, he knows in the moments he can separate what he believes from what his mind tells him he believes…it is a selfish thing, this frost in him, it reserves all of his love for itself and none for his family, his subjects, _himself_ ), but he can't quite care (it won't let him care). _Let them call me the Mad King_ , his mind whispers, _let them curse my name.I will at least be warm again_.

He is still cold, but it's not as painful (that's a lie, it just aches instead of sears, how strange that fire and frost can be so alike).It is a cold that numbs, that detaches him from it all.He feels nothing when he screams obscenities at his sister-wife, when he bites and kicks and scratches and forces himself on her (he knows it's wrong, he doesn't even want to really, sometimes it's like it's not even him at all, like when the guards would dunk—no, best not to think about that, not to think about the cold and the black spots before his eyes).She is as cold to the touch as he feels, and the only warmth he feels now is the warmth of flesh against flesh, the heat of fresh blood (it should burn, she has fire in her blood too—but maybe that's not what being a dragon means).Even the fires no longer heat him.

Wildfire comes close, and the burning of living flesh (he sits close to feel the heat, and the court must follow suit, he's stopped bothering with burning them outside of the throne room, and he can feel their disgust and horror, they have no right, the cravens who left him in that place).He has grown accustomed to the stench, and laughs to see his court, his children, his wife, all flinch from the sight of the flames eating life away.

They are no dragons, he thinks (he doesn't really know what to think anymore).He'd had it wrong, a dragon is cold to withstand the flames, not hot (hot like the throne room floor after a burning, sometimes he sends everyone away and lies on the warm stone until the chill seeps back into his blood).He knows now why dragons breathe fire—they need the fire in their belly to warm them.He is more a dragon now than ever before, but he is not quite there yet, not until the fire he wields is within him as well as without (but he remembers Aerion's tale and knows that some ways are more foolish than others).

When the Stark children come to Harrenhal, he horrifies himself for the last time while still living (he doesn't know it, not then, but no one knows then just how drastically everything is about to change).He sees them, the brash elder brother, the solemn but warm-hearted youth who'd befriended his cousin's son, the willful and beautiful girl of Rhaegar's infatuation (he knows she's the Knight but he lets it slide when Rhaegar returns with the shield, because something in his son's eyes reaches the part of his heart that clings to the memory of a woman who wed another), the slip of a boy with mischief in those wintry eyes.He sees them and thinks, _there is fire fit to survive winter's chill_.He sees them and wonders if he can steal that flame to keep inside him.He wonders if they would blaze brighter and fiercer than the smallfolk he's burned so far (the smallfolk blaze so fleetingly, but that can't be true because they take so long to die).He scares himself, but in his less lucid moments, when the dark closes in around him and his bones ache with chill, he forgets why it is wrong (or he thinks he does, it's just buried with everything he _wants_ to forget, like manacles and whips and the taste of weevily bread).He covets that flame in the Starks, and wonders what the father is like, to sire such burning children…

Rhaegar's folly has at least wrought one thing for the better.Lord Stark comes south, chasing the man's foolish offspring (foolish like his own offspring, the son who lost his head over a girl, even one filled with fire, and the son who idolizes him, but no one can be a dragon without the cold).He sees his chance.He takes that flame for his own (not his own, not really, it belongs to the frost in his veins and the chill in his bones).

And as Rickard Stark burns, Aerys laughs, for he feels like a dragon again (a dragon to burn the world, a dragon to be _free_ ).

Later, when Rhaegar is gone and war knocks at Aerys' door, he knows he wasn't really a dragon (his House, he thinks in a moment of levity, has always placed too much faith in their sigil).  Not then, nor even in this life…but in the next, well, there's always a chance.  _No harm in stacking the deck_ , he thinks, as he orders the city burnt to the ground (the frost is fully in control now, telling him that this was how it was always going to end).

When Jaime Lannister's sword meets his flesh, he despairs.  Not out of self-recrimination, that will come later, when his spirit stands before the Seven unfettered by the constraints of his mortal mind (the Stranger is kinder than he deserves, it was a pitiful death, but he at least did not suffer the fate he'd ordered for others), but out of glory denied.  He will never be a dragon now (it was a fool's dream all along).


	2. Rhaegar, the Dreamer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhaegar's madness is a quiet thing, until he has to face the consequences of his obsessions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depression  
> Obsessive Behavior  
> Character Death
> 
> This chapter came about because of my own experiences with maladaptive obsession and how that can feed into other mental illnesses. My obsessions are comparatively milder than Rhaegar's, so if you don't think you can handle reading it at the moment, please prioritize your health. Of course, Rhaegar's struggles and thought processes are mild compared to Aerys', so if you read the first chapter without issues, you might be ok. No guarantees, though, as everyone's mind is different, so please err on the side of caution.  
> One of my goals for this chapter was to show the tension between self-awareness and the lack thereof that comes with mental illness, and how you can be alert to warning signs and still miss them.  
> As usual, I've kept things fairly vague as regards events and timeline, partly because I'm going by book canon and my own speculations here and am not aware of a definitive timeline for Robert's Rebellion, and partly to keep this story from becoming too disturbing.  
> I'm also working on some ideas I had for my planned Lyanna, Elia, and Jon Snow chapters, so stay tuned for those to be posted soonish.  
> For the enjoyment of knowing what might come next, I give you the following hint: I've decided to name the chapters after what the POV character tried and failed to become.

Rhaegar is a quiet child, always watching more than doing, always listening more than speaking.It is listening that starts his spiral into a madness quite unlike that of his father, who grows more unstable with the passing years.

He is very young when he realizes how thoroughly tales and songs have caught his attention.It seems harmless at first, a simple fascination with legends, folktales, history.As soon as he can read on his own, he is rarely found outside the library—and then, only under duress.Prophecies, in particular, hold his interest more than anything else, ever since he listened to his nurse weave the tale of Daenys the Dreamer, and it is not long before he discovers it: the Song of Ice and Fire.

Something about the prediction resonates with him—perhaps the sense of urgency, of approaching doom, mirrors the feeling he gets whenever he looks at his volatile father, or maybe it is simply that an obsession was already brewing inside his vulnerable mind and simply had lacked a suitable object to latch onto—but whatever it is, it fills him with a sense of dissatisfaction so absolute he nearly cannot breathe for the hunger and desperation that strike him.It is only the beginning.

Rhaegar consumes everything written on the prophecy until he runs out of readily available sources, and is forced to wait for the delivery of more.Already prone to melancholy, he finds himself yearning constantly for something he cannot quite envision—he thinks more knowledge, greater understanding, will assuage it, but it hasn't yet.He is irritable in a way he'd never experienced before, though he is skilled at hiding it, and restless beyond the means of anything he normally does to settle.

He searches out more books, accounts, treatises, all on the subject of prophecy.In the course of his reading, something changes.Everything he has read, all the conclusions he has drawn, seem to point to _soon_.Another Long Night is coming, and the Prince Who Was Promised is not here.Logically, there are two things that can be done: prepare for war and fulfill the conditions of the prophesied birth.

The first is easily addressed.He devotes himself to learning combat with the same fervor as he does his studies, and the restlessness eases for a time.He has a purpose now, a direction, and though the profound impatience is less intense, he still yearns aimlessly.

It is when Rhaegar exhausts the knowledge of those around him that the restlessness returns.He continues searching for more information, more knowledge of strategy and logistics, more ways to push the limits of his body—but this time, the gaping hole in his mind is not so easily satisfied.

He turns then to the second part of his preparations…and finds himself stymied.He is already married to Elia, and they like each other well enough, enough to have a daughter, but Elia's health is precarious and she often suffers from lethargy so intense she cannot leave her rooms.He loves Rhaenys very much…but the gnawing urgency inside him demands a son.As does his father, his pitiful mad father, who never fully returned from captivity.

(Distantly, Rhaegar has the thought that maybe he isn't the best person to judge a man's sanity, but it is lost amid the demands of obsession.)

He is struck by the fear that the Night will come regardless of the Prince's presence—and he despairs.He spends increasingly more time alone, playing his harp and brooding.On the worst days, he performs his duties perfunctorily before returning to his bed and lying sleeplessly through the afternoon and evening.He eats, but finds no enjoyment; he sleeps yet finds no rest.Wine sours on his tongue and the richest foods make him ill.He dreams fell creatures and encroaching cold, shouting himself awake.When he seeks Elia's bed, he can sleep dreamlessly awhile, but the morning finds him just as weary as the night before.

Aegon is a blessing, and the despair eases just enough for him to realize that something in him has the potential to descend to the disastrous levels of his father.He thinks himself aware of his follies, and watches his behavior closely, but at Harrenhal he misses the signs until it is too late.

It is at Harrenhal that things become…complicated.He thinks he knows the prophecies, that Aegon is the Prince, but the Ice is missing, and he thinks to remedy that by connecting his son to the Starks in some way.His father is more unstable than ever, and the lords of the land approach him with a proposition.He is uncertain—his prophecies give him no guidance, and he fears making his father's condition worse (and, in truth, he also fears what the throne will do to his own sanity).

All of that leaves Rhaegar's mind when he encounters the Knight of the Laughing Tree…Lyanna Stark.She is fierce in a way he has never seen before, a cold, raging fury against the world saturating her entire being, accompanied by a blunt wisdom that fascinates him.He has no reason to connect her to the prophecy other than the fact of her being a Stark, but he becomes adamant that she is just as entangled with fate as he—an assertion she laughs at.

He doesn't realize until long afterwards that she has become his second obsession.

Rhaegar crowns Lyanna with blue roses, and the world shakes beneath his unsteady foothold on sanity.

They steal each other, Rhaegar and Lyanna—he from her betrothed and she from his uncertainty.By the time they are safely ensconced in Dorne, she is pregnant and he knows everything is proceeding as fate intended.

When word reaches them of the deaths of Rickard and Brandon Stark, everything falls apart.

Lyanna breaks.The cold flame of her anger against the world that told her _you cannot_ since birth has turned inward, and Rhaegar faces the knowledge that this is his doing.Oh, not all of it—there are more forces at play here than he alone can account for—but it was his obsessions that sparked the fires that now consume Westeros.He knows, now, the cost of his fervor in pursuing destiny, and he despairs of himself.

He also despairs of his father.Aerys has become dangerous in his brokenness—and now Rhaegar realizes that he has done the same.

The Rebellion, as terrible as it is, gives him focus.He defends his father out of duty, the rest of his family out of love, and Lyanna and their child out of a strange mix of love, guilt, and obsession all tangled together.He wonders, privately, whether he ever loved her or if it was just the idea of her—when he writes to Lyanna with the thought, she replies: _Of course you loved an idea of me—as I loved an idea of you.That does not make it any less a love, if misdirected.We cannot change our course now; it is too late.We can only live with the consequences._

At the Trident, Rhaegar almost thinks he can win.Robert is blind with rage, and anger makes men stupid.Indeed, Rhaegar nearly has him—but he is hit suddenly with the thought that no matter who wins here, it will all come to nothing if he has been wrong all along about Aegon—and he hesitates just long enough for Robert to gain the upper hand.

As Rhaegar dies, he thinks, fleetingly, of his family.Of his mad father and terrified mother; of cowed Viserys and the sibling not yet born; of Elia, Rhaenys, and Aegon, who have lost much to his obsessions; and of Lyanna and the child soon to emerge into the world without a future…and he hopes with all that is left in him that his children and siblings will at least make mistakes of their own instead of repeating his folly.


End file.
